


Surrender

by Anonymous



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:27:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27146621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: "Obsessed?" he says. "There's a difference between obsession and human emotion. You might want to try it sometime."She takes a step closer, her eyes dark. "Oh, believe me. I'm feeling it right now."
Relationships: Scott Moir & Tessa Virtue, Scott Moir/Tessa Virtue
Comments: 3
Kudos: 25
Collections: Anonymous





	Surrender

Lights flicker in the distance, wavering in and out. The city at night, neon and cars speeding past at eighty miles per hour, so close that the breeze threatens to tug the walkers into the street, tug them into the road. Neon, hot reds, and greens and blues burning with hallucinogenic clarity down the street, blurring into the not-quite-darkness of night. Air heavy with life, not crackling, not vibrating. It's a slow, heavy hum, like a weight. It only looks like life. They're not having fun. They speed past in their cars, heading for live neon sanctuary, streamlined and aerodynamic and all secretly hoping to crash, to burn out on the highway, foreign metal and smoke twisting the air. Sirens would wail and rain would start to fall, a soft mist twining around the edges, masking it all in dreamlike intensity.

Or maybe he's just become cynical. After all, it's been a long day, and his eyes are gritty and dry. He'd hate skating if he didn't like it so much, didn't rely on the adrenaline that anticipates a competition, the sudden simplicity of a world reduced to winning and losing; gold, silver, or bronze. If he didn't rely on the chasing of a victory and the hunting of a prize to show for it.

But today has been different. There was no thrill in this ending, no triumphant music as the cavalry rode in. Just two jet-lagged 20 somethings, and a piece of whatever metal held by a ribbon around their necks.

And Tessa just standing there, like none of this really mattered. Like they were 9 and 11 riding back to their hometowns after an afternoon of training, or like they were 16 and 18 registering for classes on a glitching remote learning website, or maybe like this was a movie. Or like it was a test and she was trying to prove something. Like big girls don't cry. She didn't cry, and he suddenly hates her for that, for standing there in her spotless white skates and her dress covered in shiny beads catching the bright lights of the arena. For standing there and watching, for reciting someone else's worn national anthem like an old childhood prayer, without even bothering to sing it. He hates her for expressing absolutely nothing. For being dead. For being better. Like this is only a job to her, nothing more than a job, and like she doesn't live and breathe with the same intensity that he does, that he knows all of their competitors do.

And maybe she doesn't. Maybe it's just about a paycheck and a few sponsors. Maybe it's just a way to impress her family at the annual week gathering. And it's not that he blames her for that, for learning to distance herself so efficiently, for hiding her vulnerability from the world around her, but because she still has the audacity to smirk at him, to brush  
her hair away from her face and look knowingly at him, to pretend that he's somehow worse because he's never learned to control all that convincingly, that she's ended up being the stronger one in the end. Or maybe it's all in his head.

They cross the parking lot in silence, their coaches leading the way. The bright lobby lights make him blink and he almost misses the plastic key tossed over Marina's shoulder. Tessa catches the other one, and then Marina is gone without a word, without a trace, the elegant lines of the elevator doors closing behind her like the tide rushing in.

He follows Tessa down the hall to the stairs and tries not to be aware of her presence right in front of him, or of the fact that he's breathing her recycled air. She stops in the stairwell, turns around, and drops her large suitcase to the floor with a metallic echo, the ridiculous weight of clothes, books, makeup and whatnot coming dangerously close to crushing his feet, making him feel guilty about not even offering to carry her luggage up the stairs. She puts her hands on her hips and narrows her eyes at him.

"So what is it?" she asks.

"What's what?" he says, sounding like an idiot.

"You know."

"What, that you're standing in my way?" He's tired, he thinks, or he would have come up with something better.

He frowns at her, ignores her poor Magdalena pose, and goes up the stairs.

She lets out a deep breath, a sigh, and follows him.

"No."

"Look, Tess. Fun as guess-the-offense may be, I'm really not into word games."

He shoves open the door marked three, steps onto the third floor, and holds the door open for her without really thinking about it. By the time he realizes what he's doing, it's too late and she's already through. He glances at the number on his key, looks ahead. There's a window at the end of the hallway, thin white curtains drawn across the glass. He can  
see the city beyond and the sensation is not that of security, but of something barely restrained, about to break through.

"Ever since we lost you've been ignoring me."

Like she wants him to pay attention, to shower her with remarks which she'll immediately decry as overdramatic. He grits his teeth, feeling dizzy with lack of sleep and the aftermath of their entirely flop of a day.

"Thought you'd be grateful," he says.

She frowns.

"Well, I am, but I'm wondering if hell's frozen over."

"Why? You're planning on going to the banquet without bailing after the first 20 minutes?"

She rolls her eyes.

"A little artist has all the tragic unhappiness and the sorrows of a great artist and he is not a great artist," she says like she's quoting something, and she probably is.

He's tired of this, tired of her games and her pretensions. It's too late for literature and dry witticisms.

"What the hell does that mean?" he asks, staring at the faux wood-grain of the door, unwilling to look at her because he doesn't want to know what he would do if he had to see her face right now, the look in her eyes.

She sighs a worn, stale breath of air in the hallway. He becomes aware of soft classical music, tinny and cheap, being piped through invisible speakers.

"You're not Marina."

"Thanks for the insight, Tess. What the hell does it mean?" he repeats.

"At the podium ceremony, you were pretending," she says like it's some revelation, an incredible insight.

Should he fall on his knees, then, beg her forgiveness and promise to be a real boy in the future?

"Pretending what?"

"That you -- that we deserved to lose."

Satisfaction in her voice, now that she's delivered the killing blow, the final word, or whatever this is supposed to be. He snorts with derision, amusement, sarcasm.

"Isn't that what we've been trained to do since we were kids? Act as if we agree with those scores? Staying humble?"

"And yet you chose today of all days to start doing that," she says flatly.

He raises his eyebrows, feeling her gaze on his back. Knowing she's looking for a weakness, something to attack. He thinks that it was so much easier when feelings weren't part of the equation. When they hadn't completely destroyed each other.

"Maybe that wasn't pretending."

"Come on, Scott," she says, and the exasperation in her tone is almost familiar, just for a second.

"What are you saying, then, Tess? That I wanna be like you and Marina?"

"Yeah," she says. "And that you're failing miserably."

He dares not clench his hands into fists, dares not give her that much.

"Hate to break it to you, but you're wrong."

"It's much easier than whatever it is you're trying to convince yourself we're doing." A non-sequitur, but he knows what she's implying.

"And that's relevant how, now?" Aside from the obvious, he thinks and wonders why she'd bring this up now when pretending has been their standard for years.

"Because you can act as if you don't care, but everybody knows you're in not just for the thrill of the win, but for the love of the sport. You're so fucking passionate about it, even after more than a decade, and that kinda passion it's not something that can be taught or learned. I don't fucking know why you're trying to suppress that." Her tone grows almost reverential and she makes a deliberate effort to flatten it, to dull it, by the end.

"You sound like you're in love with me or something," he mocks her, sliding the key into the lock. The light stays red. He's run it through upside down. He tries it again.

"Right," she says.

The door unlocks and he twists the knob, tosses his bag onto the floor, inside the room, but staying outside in the hallway, turning towards her.

"Isn't that your signature move? SUppressing shit?"

"Damn it, Scott, I'm not trying to make this personal. I'm just saying that it's dangerous." She's backpedaling, now, trying to make this all okay.

Like hell. And he says as much.

"Oh, you're concerned about my humanity now?" he asks, his voice low and sharp.

"Yeah," she says, crossing her arms. "I'm concerned because it affects us as a team."

"No, you're not," he says. "You're jealous."

"Of what?" she asks, sounding incredulous.

"Knowing what it's like to care."

Too poetic, too dramatic, too much of a generalization, especially for this late at night. He wonders if she'll notice.

"Oh, I know what it's like to care. I just don't know what it's like to be obsessed with wanting to constantly feel like you're the one who cares the most." She scowls her hands on her hips.

He wonders if she ever snuck out at night if she waited until her parents were asleep and then shimmied down the drainpipe, all hairspray and stolen cigarettes. He realizes he doesn't have to wonder about that. He knows she's never done it. He knows it because he's known her for as long as he can remember.

"Obsessed?" he says. "There's a difference between obsession and human emotion. You might want to try it sometime."

She takes a step closer, her eyes dark. "Oh, believe me. I'm feeling it right now."

"What, now you're angry?" he asks. "Does it bother you, Tess, or does it scare you?" Scare you like being alive scares you, he doesn't say, but it's obvious.

Her hands clamp across his wrists, short, yet sharp manicured nails pressing against his veins.

"Shut. Up."

He laughs.

"Such a wonder with words, too. Don't start games if you can't play, T."

"I can play," she says, and he thinks suddenly that she's going to dig her nails in, scratch out his veins and leave him bleeding to death in this rose-patterned hallway of a Holiday Inn, but she shoves him against the wall, releases his arms and singes his mouth with heat and wax and an undercurrent of metal, blood or steel.

And it's not like he's going to refuse, not now, not ever with her. Not after what she's done.

He kisses hard enough to bruise and hopes irrationally that she'll forget to cover it up. She clasps her hands around his neck as he turns them around, pushing her back to the wall and wondering how long it would take to make her human again. More than one night. More time than they have.

She breaks away, her breath coming hot and fast, shuddering gasps.

"I can play," she repeats.

And his laugh is not forced and not at all mirthful.

"And damned good, too. You practice?"

Her hands press like stone into his shoulders, knives into his back, as she pulls herself up, wraps her legs around his thighs, and he wonders how likely it is that the elevator doors will open, that Marina will come to remind them about one thing or another and will find them here in the hallway. He wonders what Tessa would do.

She smiles, smirks, lipstick smeared like fire across her mouth as she releases him. He swallows, pointedly doesn't reach up to wipe his mouth, leave stains across the sleeve of his shirt. She reaches for the zipper of his jeans, tracing his hardening cock through the rough material, and he turns, pulls them both inside his open room, because there are limits to his exhibitionism, and he does have dignity, and he's not going to give her any opportunities, leave her any openings. She will not use this against him, though he will make certain that she lives to regret it.

She pushes the door closed and he stretches her leggings enough to pull them down moving her thin lacy thong aside as she braces herself against the wall, hips canting against his hand, their silhouettes reflected in the closet mirror. Her teeth are sharp and jagged and his mouth is bleeding as she rocks back and forth against him, against the cheap white plaster, before unzipping his pants, and freeing his aching cock, probably already feeling it leak against her palm. He almost has time to wonder if this is still part of her game before he gasps, feeling her heat rubbing on his length, the tip of his cock hitting her entrance, the wetness so delicious he moans low in his throat, and she smiles, arching her back. The cross on his necklace glints in the dull light thrown off by a lamp left on to welcome the anonymous guest. The cross glints and he stumbles back, feeling something dark slither across his mind, something frightening and primal, something both predator and prey.

Her eyes close dreamily, her throat exposed, and he has the sudden urge to lean forward, press bone against flesh, and mark her so that she can't let this go. Not again. He tears the zipper of her sweatshirt open as she shudders against him and a siren approaches, growing louder as it passes and then fading into the distance. He wonders who's died, who's died in these moments. Died so that she might live. She rolls her head, looks up at him through a veil of dark hair. His cock is still sheathed between her legs, her clit hitting his pubic bone, and he can feel her leaking on him, mixing with his precum.

"Never again," she says, her legs squeezing him.

His eyes narrow as he concentrates on breathing and standing as still as possible, trying not to pathetically buck his hips to beg her for more, as he wonders how much of this she had planned, what's at stake here, really, and who's the winner. How the winner will be determined. Alpha, beta, and out.

She finally steps aside, and tugs at her wet panties, pulling her leggings back on, and adjusts her shirt like nothing's happened; as if absolutely nothing has happened, and like she thinks she's won.

"You lose," she says, and her eyes are blackened and heavy, reminding him of things he'd thought he'd forgotten. Things he'd wanted to forget. Wraiths and night terrors, freefall, and the hollowness he's felt more often than not in the past year or so.

Except she's not fighting for life, and neither is he, and they're supposed to be working together, part of a team, and he can't shake the feeling that he's just surrendered something vital, that he's just given away something he'll never be able to replace.

"We'll see," he manages, crossing his arms as he leans against the wall, still exposed, his hands clutching at the sides to stop him from relieving himself, pretending that he's cool and not shivering.

She turns, opens the door, and leaves, and as it clicks closed.

He finishes himself off while trying not to think of Tessa but failing as he desperately spills himself on his now discarded clothes, and then looks out of the window at the city beyond, and wonders who the hell she really has become and why this feels so much like betrayal.

FIN


End file.
